Shadows
by laharl
Summary: A romance, filled with 'mild peril', of Aimi and Bright. Having finished Mazakasu Katsura's wonderful (if not slightly... hmm) series Shadow Lady, I had to write one. Hope you like it- it's nowhere near finished! (How unlike my others. Hmm.)
1. Default Chapter

Outside the city was a dark hole, lit up sporadically with the tiny pinpoints of light belonging to a myriad of small apartments. Smog clogged the night air like a cloak over some of the more industrial parts of the town, whilst above others the moon and stars shone vigilantly down over the houses. Cars continued to stream through the roads, a never ending flood that did not cease day or night. There were still thousands of homeless, criminal or just late-night inhabitants roaming the streets, most of them staying close to streetlamps and main roads, carefully avoiding the vast black shadows that consumed most of the crime-ridden mega city. The police had tried to crack down on the corruption in the more populated parts, but even with more money from the Government to help them on their way they were unable to stop the onslaught of drug trafficking, vandalism, murder and above all, theft.   
  
Bright stared out at the black metropolis from his comfortable well-lit flat. He was not well off, but he had chosen this particular suite because it was practical being only a ten minute walk away from the police station, secure and warm with bright lights to battle the gloominess of the surroundings, and most importantly, the view. Bright loved to stare out over Gray City, over his play ground, over his world. Unlike most of his co-workers, Bright took a very serious view of being a police officer, and to him it was more than just a job. Admittedly, in the sense that he was paid for it, it was his job, but in another way it was his whole life, his passion. There was only one other thing in his life that had a bigger, more secure place in his heart, and she was the exact opposite of what he had spent his life trying to achieve. Bright had never understood why, if he had dedicated himself to ridding Gray City of crime, had he found himself completely infatuated with her of all people?  
  
Bright sighed and turned away from the twelve foot pane of glass, wearily taking off his thick overcoat and throwing it onto the back of a worn green armchair. As he trudged over to the en suite kitchen, the lights flickered slightly, dimming the room and allowing the shadows to creep back into his house. Then in an instant the problem was resolved, and the lights flashed back to their normal brightness. Bright paused a moment, but putting it down to his miserly landlady for faulty connections, he discarded it and stuffed a clean white cup underneath his coffee machine, flicked the switch and sank onto one of his chairs gratefully. Much as he loved his work, in this city, it was never an easy job keeping crime under control.   
  
The coffee machine hummed gently as its various machine parts whirred into life, speeding up and heating the liquids inside it. Bright listened to it proudly; he had built it himself and it was ten times as good as the coffee machines you could buy in the shops. It was one of his lesser inventions, but useful as he could always use a large mug of caffeine to get him through the day. The scalding liquid churned rhythmically around the steel container, and he closed his eyes as he listened to it, the gentle swill of his drink swiftly sending him off into a well-earned sleep.  
  
Aimi stared meditatively out of her window, huddling closer inside of the warm cocoon she had made for herself with a red fleece blanket. The night outside was dark, and she shuddered inwardly as she thought of all of the people out there, most of them normal honest men and women, but a steady proportion of them ruthless criminals with a distinct lack of both respect for the law and morals. She had never actually met any of them, but she had occasionally seen dark shadows slinking away into shady alleys and disused building sites. Of course, she had had another experience of confrontation, one that no one else had even conceived and one that had changed her life forever.   
  
Turning to lie on her back, Aimi rested her head on the arm of the sofa she was lying on and gazed up at the ceiling, hardly realising what she was doing. As her senses suddenly came back into play, she blushed furiously and turned on her side, her heart beating faster as she imagined the man in the room above hers. She felt a wave of embarrassment sweep over her, and she knew that her face was going red. She sat up to cool herself down, letting the blanket fall off her shoulders and come to rest in her lap. She was still in her uniform from the café, but she was about to go to bed so there would be no point changing. De-Mo would have also loved to spy on her as she undressed, which was probably more to the point.   
  
Aimi got to her feet and crossed the apartment floor to the bathroom. She looked shyly back at her reflection from the mirror, bashfully studying her face. Her white skin was framed by her long plaited white hair, and penetrated by her brown eyes. She wondered mildly if Bright saw her differently from her pride-less conception, but then quickly repressed the thought, feeling the flood of scarlet tinge her cheeks once more. Closing her eyes, she cursed herself for her complete absence of self esteem, hating the way she did not have the confidence to trust in her charms. When she opened them again, she did not feel much better.   
  
'You've got to tell him soon,' came a loud, piercing voice from behind her. Aimi whipped around from the mirror, and failed to hide her awkwardness from her companion De-Mo.  
  
'Wh- what?' she stammered. 'I don't know what you mean, De-Mo,' The odd little boy with spiked black hair looked at her sardonically.   
  
'You can't fool me Aimi, and you know it.' he said with a grin, showing teeth that seemed somewhat larger than normal size. 'Why don't you just tell him? 'Cause you know if you don't then I will,' Aimi gasped.  
  
'No De-Mo, I'm sure you wouldn't do that… because you know that if you did that… then… well you just wouldn't do it!'  
  
'Aww, come on Aimi, think what Shadow Lady would do! If you were her, you'd be up there right now, with no clo-'  
  
'De-Mo!' Aimi shrieked, covering her ears defensively, and desperately trying to stop the mental images that flooded through her brain. 'I know I'm not as… straight forward as Shadow Lady, but…' she paused, about to tell her 'little brother' that she was doing it her own, quiet way and that that was good enough for her. However, as she thought about it more, she realised that maybe he had a point. Bright was infatuated with Shadow Lady anyway, so why couldn't she break her mould and act more like her? Maybe then Bright would begin to think of her in a new light…  
  
She shook her head, and smiled bashfully at De-Mo. The small angular boy stepped aside to let his mistress pass, his huge strange eyes following her as she passed through the hall to fall onto her bed. He wondered if he should tell her.   
  
'Your coffee's ready,' came a sharp voice from somewhere above Bright's slumped head. He opened one eye a crack, his usual vigilant wariness impeded by his sleep. Brilliant light filtered in through his one opened eyelid, and he saw before him three dark silhouettes, two very large shapes and one very small. It was this that snapped him back to the real world.  
  
Sitting bolt upright, Bright squinted at the brightness, cautiously taking the proffered cup from the smallest man's outstretched hand. Steam rose off the top of the liquid, yet as soon as his fingers touched the white china they were chilled to the bone. In surprise he let go of the cup slightly, making it dip dangerously for a moment as he lost his grip. Then he clasped the icy mug again, and stared up at his visitors, too stunned to be angry yet.   
  
'Who are you?' he asked, still sitting on the wooden chair they had woken him from. He quickly assessed each of the figures before him, calculating their possible motives and threat as he often had done in his police work. All three men, as they appeared to be, were dressed in the same black overcoat and Trilbies, which came down to the floor in stiff sable folds. The two large men, now that he looked at them, were not exactly the same as he had first assumed, but rather the opposite; one was large in every aspect, with a huge ribcage and stomach, legs like tree trunks and huge biceps to compliment his foot-thick neck and head. The other large man, on the other hand, was large only in height, and seemed to be like another version of the smaller man that had been stretched, with long gangling limbs and a thin scrawny neck, on top of which was perched an egg-like head.   
  
The little man however was harder to decipher. He was about four feet in height, his chin only just clearing the top of Bright's kitchen table. He was in proportion to his size, unlike his two companions, but his head seemed slightly over large. His eyes were half hidden by his low slung hat, but from the little he could see they seemed enormous and glittered with a strange ethereal shine. The collar of his overcoat was turned up until it touched the brim of his Trilby, but Bright still shivered at the sight of the small revealed sliver of knife-like teeth, bared in a huge, maniacal grin. He put the coffee swiftly down on the table, where the steam of the boiling drink mixed with that of the mist that rose up from the sub-zero porcelain. A small crack appeared in its smooth glossy surface.   
  
'That isn't important at the minute,' replied the small man, the slit of teeth becoming wider as he gazed solemnly at Bright. 'We're here because we're meant to be here, and that's all you need to know.'  
  
'How did you get in here?' demanded Bright, anger now filtering through his amazement. It intensified as he realised that he also felt a numbing fear creeping through his body, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Strangely though, he also felt a quiet interest and almost respect for these weird, silent intruders. 'What do you want?'  
  
'He already said,' started the large man on the leader's right, his voice just as big as his body.   
  
'Yes, you don't need to know anything yet! We're here because we're meant to be!' finished the man on his boss's left. His voice too reflected his physique; it was thin, reedy and bird-like. Yet all the men's voices contained something that Bright could not quite put his finger on, something that compelled him to sit still and listen to what they had to say. He had never heard anything like it.   
  
'Your name is Bright, correct?' inquired the small man.  
  
Bright said nothing. 'Then I suppose I am right. Well, Bright, we're here to talk to you about a matter of great importance. A matter of business, I suppose you could say.'   
  
'What business?' said Bright guardedly. 'I've never met any of you, and I have no idea what you're talking about.' The little man grinned even more now, giving the impression that if his teeth widened any more the entire top half of his head would simply fall off.   
  
'You work in the police force in Gray City, do you not?' the man continued. Bright nodded. 'And you have solved many of your cases also, I assume.' Another nod. 'But you haven't managed to solve one, one of the most infamous of all your cases also.'   
  
'I don't know what your leading up to.'  
  
'Then we'll tell you!' screeched to tall man on the right, apparently unable to speak normally without screaming. 'We're here about Shadow Lady!'  
  
Bright was on his feet in a flash, glaring the tall man in the eye, his anger flaring. 'What do you want with her? Do you know where she is? Are you working for or against her?'  
  
'Sit down, please.' said the small man. His voice had an edge on it, that Bright somehow could not resist. He angrily sat back on the chair, glaring defiantly at the man.   
  
'Well?' Bright demanded, 'What about Shadow Lady?' The two large men exchanged mysterious glances, but the little man's eyes never left Bright's face.   
  
'We understand that you have been troubled by her in the recent past. The police of… Gray City have tried their best to arrest her on several occasions, but she has somehow always managed to evade capture. This is primarily because she simply manages to run away, but also because she has the safety of her secret identity to hide in.'  
  
'Yeah, I already know all of that.' started Bright.  
  
'We want to make a deal with you. Shadow Lady is wanted by your law enforcement here, but she is also, shall we say, desired in another place too. We have all the information you need to captured her, and are perfectly prepared to allow you to take all the glory of her arrest without catch, as we know is your ultimate dream.'  
  
Bright blushed slightly, but the man did not stop. 'But, there is another side. After we tell you who Shadow Lady really is, and set up a passable opportunity for her to come to, you must not intern her in one of your normal cells. Rather, you must turn her over to us.'  
  
Bright frowned, his initial fears confirmed. 'I cannot possibly allow you to take charge of Shadow Lady once captured if I know nothing about you,' he retorted curtly, ignoring the tiniest of advances the two large companions made. The small man shrugged.   
  
'Maybe. But there is another factor too, which you have been too brash to consider up until now,' A gleam came into his eyes. 'You are not really in a position to make demands, but to answer them. If you do not…'  
  
He turned the lapels of his trench coat down, revealing his lower jaw, and gave Bright his biggest smile. 


	2. Shadows: Part Two

Both De-Mo and Aimi heard the muffled thud from above their heads. Aimi looked sleepily up, her white hair spilling over her soft pillow like a waterfall. The sound that had woken her seemed to be a one-off, and now the silence was broken only by the rhythmic tick of the ancient wooden clock on her bedroom wall. It was dark in her bedroom, and none of the acid yellow of the outside lights penetrated the night through her curtains. Yet she could just make out the shape of an angular little boy kneeling ominously on the foot of her bed.   
  
'De-Mo!' she hissed, conscientiously pulling her duvet up to her chin as she sat up, even though she wore a t-shirt many sizes too big for her that his her body, feeling heat emanate off her face and praying that her flat mate would not see it. But he was not smiling.  
  
'Aimi! Did you hear that noise?' Aimi nodded puzzled.  
  
'Yeah?'   
  
'We should go and see what happened up there,' the boy replied decidedly.   
  
'Aww, De-Mo, I'm sure Bright just dropped a chair or something… He might be inventing or something, in which case it could be his machine making that noise…' she smiled despite herself at the thought of Bright's inventions.   
  
'No, I don't think so. I have this feeling that something's wrong up there. We should at least go and check it out.' A wave of embarrassment hit the girl, and she sat upright in her bed, forgetting about her unnecessary modesty and letting the blanket fall to reveal her wrinkled white shirt.   
  
'De-Mo, I'm sure there's nothing wrong, and anyway, if we appeared at Bright's door at-' she paused and glanced at the gloomy clock on the wall, '- two-fifteen in the morning, don't you think he'd be a bit suspicious? And we'd make fools of ourselves.'  
  
A second thump gently shook the hanging light-shade on her bedroom ceiling.  
  
'Aimi!' frowned De-Mo commandingly. Aimi felt her resistance melting, the habitual obedience slipping into gear, 'I'm going to have a look, whether you come or not!' His partner hung her head.  
  
'Oh, all right then, but just wait until I put some proper clothes on.' She paused, waiting for him to leave. He remained motionless. 'De-Mo,' she warned, crossing her arms across her chest. Sometimes he was such a pervert, really.   
  
When she had finally persuaded him that there was nothing to see, she quickly slipped out of bed and went over to the nearest trousers available, a pair of faded black denim shorts that she had washed once in the wrong temperature and that had never been the same again afterwards. Swiftly she plaited her soft hair, letting her rebellious fringe and front hair to flick out as they invariably did. Then she opened her bedroom door and padded out into the hallway.   
  
It was cold outside of her flat, and the shadows seemed to press in suffocating from every corner. The doors they passed, although in daylight clean and white, seemed clinical and like leering teeth in the gaping mouth of the wall. Silent, waiting windows reflected the little light in the hallway as they passed them towards the stair case, mirroring their reflection of a beautifully pale girl and her unearthly companion.   
  
As they moved quietly onto the stone steps, Aimi wished that she had thought to put her warm, white slippers on as the concrete beneath her bare feet was shockingly sharp, and sent shivers running up and down her spine. She placed her hand on the stair rail and began to climb, De-Mo trudging determinedly alongside her. He occasionally glanced up at her and seemed about to say something, but again and again closed his mouth and remained silent.   
  
At the next floor they stepped from the freezing stairs and walked once again onto soft red carpet, shrouded by darkness and moonlight, and a welcome change from the icy stone beforehand. Aimi peered into the dark corridor ahead of them, barely making out the neat brass numbers on the doors. Bright's room was number four-oh-six, her room three-oh-six. But it was not the number that drew her attention to Bright's front door.   
  
Even as she looked, she saw the wood of number four-oh-six shudder and bend slightly, a blunted knock verifying that it was a heavy object being thrown against it that made it move. She exchanged quick glances with her companion, before quickening her pace towards the still, white door.   
  
Aimi stood outside the door, gathering her courage to open it, her heart beating faster despite her continuous mental reassurances that she was over reacting and would find Bright inside moving furniture or inventing calmly, and would have to make up some unlikely excuse for being so worried in the first place. She could picture his face now, laughing and lovely, his eyes full of confusion at her anxiety on his behalf and his perfect mouth held in a half-smile of flawlessness.   
  
And then the door opened, and she indeed did find herself looking into a face.   
  
Before she could even register the strange visage before her, she saw a black blur beside her being propelled into the apartment, and recognised the astonished figure as her friend De-Mo. She tried to reach out to him, but before her brain had even received the chemical messages she felt an iron grip close around her arm and jerk her into the front hall, the door, despite being slammed, closing with hardly a sound.   
  
Noises came from the kitchen, not of thuds but of scraping and slight, quick movements, but stopped as soon as the sounds from the hall reached their ears. A cold hand slid over Aimi's eyes and face, slipping down to her mouth where it clamped across her lips and cheeks like it was glued there. As she tried to move her head, the hand effortlessly held her head straight, and the grip on her left upper arm tightened, sending spasms of pain down to her tingling fingertips. She could hardly see anything, despite the lights all being on in the room. Bright was nowhere to be seen.   
  
She could hear stifled words from both behind her and from the kitchen, and she immediately attributed to noise behind her to De-Mo, but the noises ahead of her she was not so sure about. There was another thump, much louder now as she was within ten metres of the source, then an acute scrape of wood on tiles, and then silence. Her heart leapt to her throat, and a shadow appeared in the lit kitchen entrance.   
  
'What have we here?' came the voice, seeming to spread and enlarge as it left the figure's mouth. It was a crisp, pointed tone, and seemed strangely familiar somehow, as if she had heard it a thousand times before, yet never so clearly. She wracked her panicking brain for any memory of where the feeling came from, but found nothing. Then the voice came again, closer now, but he seemed to have disappeared.   
  
'Oh, this is a coincidence,' it crooned from behind her, obviously speaking directly to De-Mo. 'If it isn't our treacherous little devil from back Home! So kind of you to turn yourself in…' Muffled yells from her left shoulder told her all of De-Mo's reaction. But her head spun. More of De-Mo's kind? How could that possibly be?  
  
Suddenly she understood the gravity of the danger that Bright, De-Mo and herself were in.   
  
Her heart skipped a beat as the sharp voice started again, this time from right beside her ear, almost actually speaking into it. 'And you brought her too! My, my, my… we'll have to get a few years knocked off your sentence for this service, De-Mo,' There was a pause, and an icy sensation brushed past her, momentarily numbing the stabbing ache in her upper arm where the unforgiving fingers still clutched tightly. 'Bring him in,' the voice called out to the kitchen doorway, and the light fragmented as a figure moved and obscured the light. Then it appeared, forcing another person out in front of them. Aimi's heart froze fully this time, and she stared in horror at the scene unfolding before her eyes.   
  
A huge towering man had emerged from the kitchen, wearing an equally large overcoat that hid the rest of his clothes or form. A large hat covered his face also, revealing only the bottommost part of it. Before him he propelled another man who struggled angrily, but was powerless against the captor that held him. One gigantic arm had wrapped itself around his captive's neck, whilst the second was curled like a huge wrought iron shackle around the man's waist, leaving him no room for movement and hardly any for breathing. The captive looked up at the crowd before him, and as his eyes met Aimi's they widened in shock, before being clouded with complete fury and confusion. Aimi saw that there was blood on his forehead, and wondered what else they had done to Bright.   
  
'What do you want with them?' he shouted angrily, his voice tight because of the unrelenting grip on his neck. 'Let them go at least!'  
  
The voice wavered from her left, neutral in tone as it answered. 'They have a much bigger part to play in this than you know, and if you had agreed in the first place you wouldn't have to ask that question.' Aimi wondered what Bright had refused before their arrival, shuddering at the thought of it. She looked helplessly at Bright, and listened to the sound of struggling behind her from De-Mo, feeling a wave of anger rise up in her. She saw red.  
  
With a huge intake of breath, she clamped her teeth on the hand covering her mouth, tasting flavourless flesh and sweet blood as she did so and cringing because of it. The hand whipped away with an accompanying curse, and she had a split second of fresh air in which she cried  
  
'Let him go, please!' Then the hand snaked back, slapping her roughly in the face and once more closing over her mouth, the grasp on her arm doubling in potency. Daggers spiralled down her limb and cheek, and Aimi felt sure that her arm was about to snap. She shuddered as her vision dimmed, feeling her legs buckling beneath her and herself beginning to fall. She heard a far away cry from Bright, but was too far off to understand and respond. But then the voice came again.   
  
'Easy there, you're hurting her. Let go, she's not going to do anything like she is now.' Immediately she felt the startling strength lessen from her arm and the liquid-covered hand removed from her face, leaving the bruise to blacken unhindered. She sank to the floor helplessly, overcome by the shock, terror and helplessness, but her vision cleared and she felt breath flooding back through her body. She gasped for air, and lay unable to move on the carpet.   
  
'This girl cannot be spared, she has a starring role in this drama, Bright. And her little friend is perhaps more than what he seems, or less.' There was the slightest hint of amusement in the voice, but it quickly passed. Aimi slowly forced herself up onto her feet, and felt the same cold hand tighten around her neck, only this time less harshly, only stopping her from escaping instead of hurting her. The world spun around her, and she closed her eyes and concentrated on 


End file.
